The Stainless Steel Rat ssr-1

by Harry Harrison

  Some girls might commit suicide, but not Angelina. I could guess what she had done. Hating herself, loathing and detesting her world and the people on it, she would have had no compunction about committing a crime to gain the money she wanted.Money for an operation to correct one of those imperfections.Then more money for more operations.Then someone who dared to stop her in this task, and the ease and perhaps pleasure with which she killed him.The slow upward climb through crime and murder—to beauty.And during the climb the wonderful brain that had been housed in the ill-formed flesh had been warped and changed.

  Poor Angelina.I could be sorry for her without forgetting the ones she had killed.Poor, tragic, a lone girl who in winning half the battle had lost the other half.Purchased skill had shaped the body into a lovely—truthfully an angelic—form. Yet in succeeding, the strength of the mind that had accomplished all this had been deformed until it had been made as ugly as the body had been in the beginning.

  Yet if you could change a body—couldn’t you change a mind? Could something be done for her?

  The very pressure and magnitude of my thoughts drove me out of the small room and into the air. It was nearing midnight and the guards would be stationed below and all the doors locked. Rather than face the explanations and simple mechanical difficulties, I climbed upwards instead. There would be no one in the roof gardens and walkways this time of night; I could be alone.

  Freibur has no moon, but it was a clear night and the stars cast enough light to see by. The roof guard saluted when I went by, and I could see the red spark of a cigarette in his hand. I should have said something about it, but my mind was too occupied. Passing on I turned a corner and stood leaning on the parapet, looking out unseeingly at the black bulk of the mountains.

  Something kept gnawing for attention and after a few minutes I recognized what it was.The guard.He was there for a purpose and smoking on duty wasn’t considered the best behavior for a sentry. Perhaps I was being finicky, but it is a failing of mine. Take care of all the small factors and the big ones take care of themselves. In any case, simply thinking about it was bothering me, so I might as well go around and say a word to him.

  He wasn’t at his usual post, which was optimistic; at least he was making the rounds and keeping an eye on things. I started to walk back when I noticed the broken flowers hanging from the edge of the garden. This was most unusual because the roof gardens were the Count’s special pleasure and were practically manicured daily. Then I saw the dark patch in among the flowers and had the first intimation that something was very, very wrong.

  It was the guard, and he was either dead or deeply unconscious. I didn’t bother to find out which. There was only one reason I could think of for someone to be here at night like this. Angelina. Her loom was on the top floor, almost below this spot. Silently I ran to the decorative railing and looked over. Five meters below was the white patch of the balcony outside her window. Something black and formless was crouched there.

  My gun was in my room. For one of the few times in my life I had been so disturbed that my normal precautions were forgotten. My concern over Angelina was going to cost her her life.

  All of this I realized in a fraction of a second as my fingers ran along the balustrade. A shiny blob was fixedthere,anchoring a strand so thin that it was invisible, yet I knew was as strong as a cable. The assassin had lowered himself with web spinner, a tiny device that spun a thin strand like a spider. Only the strand’s substance was formed of a single long-chain molecule that could support a man’s weight. It would slice my hands like the sharpest blade if I tried to slide down it.

  There was only one way I could reach that balcony, a tiny square above the two-kilometer drop into the valley below. I made the decision even as I was leaping up onto the rail. It had a wide flat top and I sat for an instant to catch my balance. Below me the window swung open noiselessly and I dropped, my heels extended, aiming for the man below.

  I turned in the air and instead of hitting him squarely I caromed off his shoulder and we both sprawled onto the balcony. It shivered under the impact, but the ancient stone held. The fall had half-stunned me, and with pain-blurred reasoning I hoped that his shoulder felt as bad as my leg. For a few moments I could do nothing but gasp for breath and try to scramble towards him. A long, thin bladed knife had been knocked from his hand by the impact and I could see it glittering where he reached for it. His fingers clutched it just as I attacked. He grunted and made a vicious stab at me that brushed my sleeve. Before he could draw back I had his knife wrist in my hand and clamped on.

  It was a silent, nightmare battle. Both of us were half-dazed from my drop, yet we knew it was life we were battling for. I couldn’t stand because of my bruised leg and he was instantly on top of me, heavier and stronger. He couldn’t use the arm I had landed on, but it took all the strength of both my arms to hold away the menacing blade. There was no sound other than our hoarse panting.

  This assassin was going to win as weight and remorseless strength brought the knife down. Sweat almost blinded me, but I could still see well enough to notice the twisted way his other arm hung. I had broken a bone when I hit—yet he had never made a sound.

  There is no such thing as fair fighting when you are struggling for your life. Isquirmedmy leg out from under him and managed to bend it enough to dig the knee into his broken arm. His whole body shuddered. I did it again.Harder.He twisted, trying to pull away from the pain. I heaved sideways, throwing him off balance. His elbow bent as be tried to save himself from falling and I put all my strength in both hands turning that sinewy wrist and driving the hand backwards.

  It almost worked, but he was still stronger than I was and the point of the blade merely scratched his chest. Even as I was fighting to turn the hand again he shuddered and died.

  A ruse would not have tricked me—but this was no ruse. I felt every muscle in his body tighten rock-bard in a spasm as he fell sideways. My grip on his wrist didn’t lessen until the light came on in the room behind me. Only then did I see the ugly yellow stain halfway up the blade of the knife.A quick-acting nerve poison, silent and deadly.There, on the sleeve of my shirt, was a thin yellow mark where the blade had brushed me. I knew these poisons didn’t need apuncture,they could work just as well on the naked skin.

  With infinite caution, struggling against the fatigue that wanted my hands to shake, I peeled my shirt slowly off. Only when it had been buried on top of the corpse did I let myself drop backwards, gasping for air.

  My leg could work now, though it hurt hideously. It must have been bruised but not broken since it supported my weight. Turning, I stumbled to the high window and threw it open. Light streamed out on the body behind me. Angelina was sitting up in bed, her face smooth and her hands folded on the covers in front of her.Only her eyes showing any awareness of what had happened.

  “Dead,” I said with a dry throat, and spat to clear it. “Killed byhis ownpoison.” I slumped into the room, testing my leg.

  “I was sleeping, I didn’t hear him open the window,” she said. “Thank you.”

  Actress, liar, cheat, murderess.She had played a hundred roles in countless voices. Yet when she said those final words there was a ring of unforged feeling to them. This murder attempt had come too soon after the earlier traumatic scene. Her defenses were still down, her real emotions showing.

  Her hair hung to her shoulders, brushing the single ribbons of her nightgown, which was made of some thin and soft fabric; intimate. This sight, on top of the events of the evening, removed any reserve I might have had. I was kneeling by the bed, holding her shoulders and staring deep into her eyes, trying to reach what lay behind them. The locket with the broken chain lay on the bedside table. I grabbed it in my fist.

  “Don’t you realize this girl doesn’t exist except in your memory,” I said, and Angelina didn’t move. “It’s past like everything else. You were a baby—now you’re a woman. You were a little girl—now you’re a woman. You may have been this girl—b
ut you are not any more!”

  With a convulsive movement I turned and hurled the thing out of the window into the darkness.

  “You’re none of those things of the past, Angelina!” I said withan intensitylouder than a shout. “You are yourself… just yourself!”

  I kissed her then and there was no trace of the pushing away or rejection there had been before. As I needed her, she needed me.

  Chapter 18

  Dawn was just touching the sky when I brought the assassin’s body in to the Count. I was deprived of the pleasure of waking him since the sergeant of the guard had already done this when the roof sentry had been discovered. The guard was dead too, from a tiny puncture of the same poison-tipped blade. The guardsmen and the Count were all gathered around the body on the floor of the Count’s sitting room and chattering away about this mystery, the inexplicable death of the sentry. They didn’t see me until I dropped my corpse down by the otherone,and they all jumped back.

  “Here’s the killer,” I told them, not without a certain amount of pride. Count Cassitor must have recognized the thug because he gave a shuddering start and popped his eyes.No doubt an ex-relative, brother-in-law or something.I imagined he hadn’t believed that the Radebrechen family would really go through with their threats of revenge.

  A certainuneasiness about the guard sergeant gave me my first cue that I was imagining wrong. The sergeant glanced back and forth from the corpse to the Count and I wondered what thoughts were going through his shaven and thick-skulled military head. There were wheels within wheels here and I would like to have known what was going on. I made a mental note to have a buddy-to-buddy talk with sarge at the first opportunity. The Count chewed his cheek and cracked his knuckles over the bodies, and finally ordered them dragged out.

  “Stay here. Bent,” he said as I started to leave with the others. I dropped into a chair while he locked the rest out. Then he made a rush for the bar and choked down about a waterglass full of the local spirits. Only when he was working on his second glass did he remember to offer me some of this potable aqua regia. I wasn’t saying no, and while I sipped at it I wondered what he was so upset about.

  First the Count checked the locks on all the doors and sealed the single window. His ring key unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and he took out a small electronic device with controls and an extendible aerial on top.

  “Well look at that!” I said when he pulled out the aerial. He didn’t answer me, just shot a long look at me from under his eyebrows, and went back to adjusting the thing. Only when it was turned on and the green light glowed on the top did he relax a bit.

  “You know what this is?” he asked, pointing at the gadget.

  “Of course,” I said. “But not from seeing them on Freibur. They aren’t that common.”

  “They aren’t common at all,” he mumbled, staring at the green light which glowed steadily. “As far as I know this is the only one on the planet—so I wish you wouldn’t mention it to anybody. Anybody,” he repeated with emphasis.

  “Not my business,” I told him with disarming lack of interest. “I think a man’s entitled to his privacy.”

  I liked privacy myself and had used snooper-detectors like this one plenty of times. They could sense electronic or radiation snoopers and gave instant warning. There were ways of fooling them, but it wasn’t easy to do. As long as no one knew about the thing the Count could be sure he wasn’t being eavesdropped on. But who would want to do that? He was in the middle of his own building—and even he must know that snooper devices couldn’t be worked from a distance. There was distinct smell of rat in the air, and I was beginning to get an idea of what was going on. The Count didn’t leave me any doubt as to who the rat was.

  “You’re not a stupid man, Grav Diebstall,” he said, which means he thought I was a lot stupider than he was. “You’ve been offplanet and seen other worlds. You know how backward and suppressed we are here, or you wouldn’t have joined withus[?] to help throw off the yoke around our planet’s neck. No sacrifice is too great if it will bring closer this day of liberation.” For some reason he was sweating now and had resumed his unpleasant habit of cracking the knuckles. The side of his head—where Angela had landed the bottle—was covered with plasti-skin and dry of sweat. I hoped it hurt.

  “This foreign woman you have been guarding—“ theCount said, turning sideways but still watching me from the corners of his eyes. “She had been of some help in organizing things, but is now putting us in an embarrassing position. There has been one attempt on her life and there will probably be others. The Radebrechen are an old and loyal family—her presence is a continued insult to them.” Then he pulled at his drink and delivered the punch line.

  “I think that you can do the job she is doing. Just as well, and perhaps better. How would you like that?”

  Without a doubt I was just brimming over with talent—or there was a shortage of revolutionaries on this planet. This was the second time within twelve hours that I had been offered a partnership in the new order. One thing I was sure of though—Angelovely’s offer had been sincere. Cassi Duke of Rdenrundt’s proposition had a distinctly bad odor to it. I played along to see what he was leading up to.

  “I am honored, noble Count,” I oozed. “But what will happen to the foreign woman? I don’t imagine she will think much of the idea.”

  “What she thinks is not important,” he snarled and touched his fingers lightly to the side of his head. He swallowed and got his temper back under control. “We cannot be cruel to her,” he said with one of the most insincere smiles I have ever seen on a human being’s face. “We’ll just hold her in custody. She has some guards who I imagine will be loyal, but my men will take care of them. You will be with her and arrest her at the proper time. Just turn her over to the jailers who will keep her safe. Safe forherself,and out of sight where she can cause no more trouble for us.”

  “It’s a good plan,” I agreed with winning insincerity. “I don’t enjoy the thought of putting this poor woman in jail, but if it is necessary to the cause it must be done. The ends justify the means.”

  “You’re right. I only wish I was able to state it so clearly. You have a remarkable ability to turn a phrase.Bent.I’m going to write that down so I can remember it. The ends justify…”

  He scratched away industriously on a note plate. What a knowledge of history he had—just the man to plan a revolution! I searched my memory for a few more old saws to supply him with, until my brain was flooded with a sudden anger. I jumped to my feet.

  “If we are going to do this we should not waste any time, Count Rdenrundt,” I said. “I suggest 1800 hours tonight for the action. That will give you enough time to arrange for the capture of her guards. I will be in her rooms and will arrest her as soon as I have a message from you that the first move has succeeded.”

  “You’re correct.A man of action as always.Bent.It will be as you say.” We shook hands then and it took all the will power I possessed to stop from crushing to a pulp his limp, moist, serpentine paw. I went straight to Angelina.

  “Can we be overheard here?” I asked her.

  “No, the room is completely shielded.”

  “Your former boy-friend.CountCassi,has a snooper-detector. He may have other equipment for listening to what goes on here.”

  This thought didn’t bother Angelic in the slightest. She sat by the mirror, brushing her hair. The scene was lovely but distracting. There were strong winds blowing through the revolution that threatened to knock everything down.

  “I know about the detector,” she said calmly, brushing. “I arranged for him to get it—without his knowledge of course—and made sure it was useless on the best frequencies. I keep a close watch on his affairs that way.”

  “Were you listening in a few minutes ago when he was making arrangements with me to kill your guards and throw you into the dungeons downstairs?”

  “No, I wasn’t listening,” she said with that amazing self-possession and
calm that marked all her actions. She smiled in the mirror at me. “I was busy just remembering last night.”

  Women! They insist on mixing everything up together. Perhaps they operate-better that way, but it is very hard on those of us who find that keeping emotion and logic separate produces sounder thinking. I had to make her understand the seriousness of this situation.

  “Well, if that little bit of news doesn’t interest you,” I said as calmly as I could, “perhaps this does. The rough Radebrechens didn’t send that killer last night—the Count did.”

  Success at last.Angelina actually stopped combing her hair and her eyes widened a bit at the import of what I said. She didn’t ask any stupid questions, but waited for me to finish.

  “I think you have underestimated the desperation of that rat upstairs. When you droned him with that bottle yesterday, you pushed him just as far as he could be pushed. He must have had his plans already made and you made his mind up for him. The sergeant of the guard recognized the assassin and connected him with the Count. That also explains how the killer got access to the roof and knew just where to find you. It’s also the best explanation I can imagine for the suddenness of this attack. There’s too much coincidence here with the thing happening right after your battle with Cassitor the Cantankerous.”

  Angelina had gone back to combing her hair while I talked, fluffing up the curls. She made no response. Her apparent lack of interest was beginning to try my nerves.

  “Well—what are you going to do about it?” I asked, with more than a little note of peevishness in my voice.

  “Don’t you think it’s more important to ask what you are going to do about it?” She delivered this line very lightly, but there was a lot behind it. I saw she was watching me in the minor, so I turned and went over to the window, looking out over the fatal balcony at the snowsummitted[?] mountain peaks beyond. What was I going to do about it? Of course that was the question here—much bigger than she realized.